Ricky Gervais’s Alley Cats is even worse than you thought

Let no one say that Ricky Gervais’ new Netflix cartoon is an amateurish piece of work. It is as accomplished as a cartoon that dwells on the consequences of anal sex with a hedgehog can be.

And let us not condemn it for that. Alley Cats is not the first piece of drama to imbue cats with sexual suggestiveness. It began with Lady and the Tramp and reached a previous nadir with the film version of Cats, starring Taylor Swift as feline fatale Bombalurina, a character that TS Eliot somehow neglected to invent. But it is undoubtedly the most vulgar.

Of course, it is all talk. We never actually see a cat’s genitals or watch any hot tabby action. Alley Cats is all bantz, innit? Harmless! Fucking stuck-up wankers can go finger themselves. Twats.

In perhaps the most sophisticated interpretation of this cri de cœur from a man confronting his own mortality, Gervais has thrown down the gauntlet to his woke critics. You want me to Be Kind, he snarls. I’ll show you how a man can be kind. We can be as offensive as we effing well like.

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But I’m still going to pray for the life of a kitten – on a toilet, obviously – and catch a mouse for my date because that’s what kindness is, you [insert expletive], you dried-up wankstains of the language police. Also, it doesn’t matter that I’m not a father.I can still take in an abandoned kitten and show her affection. Would you do that? Would you, you tossers?

Fair point, Ricky, and one I have some sympathy with. Performative kindness allied with profound intolerance is a curse of digital culture. It merits satire. But Gervais’ alter ego, Gus, is a shameless projection of Gervais’ Have I Offended You? Good! Let Me Fucking Do It Again persona, and Gus is a cat. It grows wearisome.

A graveyard plays a major role in the action, and in Gus’ happier moments he and his date flank a large cross and gaze up at the moon. This may hint at a new preoccupation with Christian values, but I wouldn’t count on it. The cats don’t do theology, just mortality, and when an elderly acquaintance is taken to the vet in the cat carrier he knows what’s coming: oblivion.

Perhaps the most amusing scene is Gus’ insistence on catching a mouse for his date. He cannot stop himself swallowing the first two he catches before he manages to resist temptation long enough to present the third to her. You see? Blokes! Give us a chance and we’ll show you we can do it.

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As such, Alley Cats wants its place in a long comedic tradition of screwed-up older blokes with a heart of corroded gold, from Rigsby to Alf Garnett. Even the music harks back to the 20th century.

Of course, you’d never have heard a bloke using the c-word or boasting about using his penis as fish bait, but still, things were better back then, weren’t they? Cats could be cats and neutered, gravy-eating mollycoddles like Ponce (well voiced by Tom Basden) could be put in their place, and you know what? They’d still come and hang out with Gus because he’s funny so FUCK OFF.

In a peculiar, feline way, Alley Cats is a profoundly reactionary cartoon, presenting as edgy but obsessed with how society ought to let comedians be. It is bombastic and mawkish, lacking the subtlety of The Office. It forgets that the comedian is nothing without his foils. But on the bright side, at least no one miaows.

Alley Cats is on Netflix